Vusi Sindane
I was born in a, probably, “fourth world” piece of South Africa, therefore a large part of me is still heavily infused with the core African cultures and rituals. Largely, I accepted them because I was born into them but lately I have been realizing that many people I know have problems that we have avoided almost completely, probably because of this cultural subscription. Due to this, I have come to appreciate my barbarism (as many now term our cultures).
My professional aspirations (software engineering and business) have exposed me to new people and philosophies. I would compare these novel aspects of myself as a modern crust of my aged mantle. I would best describe myself with the analogy of a planet. As new things develop on the surface, the mantle occasionally restores the true image of the planet with volcanic spews of originality. This occasional chaos forces me to record the slight, yet significant changes of the tectonic plates of my philosophical continents.
I am at profound peace when I am at home (“fourth world”). It is probably because the people there are still genuine in their daily discourse, whatever that may be. It could be old women herding their grandchildren to water the vegetables or catch a chicken (to slaughter) for a valuable guest, or the young men drowning their lives with a daily overdose of booze. I find that people there are not hiding behind a broomstick of uncanny agendas like most metropolitan people.
That profound peace however, cannot fulfil my professional aspirations. For this reason, I endure the polluted skylines of the metropolis. I often find myself tight-rope-walking the new rules of the city. For example, houses are stacked much closer together but neighbourhood is hard to come by. Sharing an idea is entrepreneurial suicide. Acoustic laughs are replaced by digital L.O.L’s and emoticons from skype, twitter, facebook and other electronic sources. In spite of all this, I still want to do business. However I often find myself trying to conduct it in a new atmosphere of rules that yield very little profits. I find that there is too much moral resistance in my vocabulary preventing me from replacing words like “bribery” with “strategic partnerships”, as our “black empowered” called it. It is due to this that there is a bottleneck on the highway to the land of my dreams. Nevertheless, I believe that there is a way and I am inching closer to it everyday.
Having been brought up by an unconventional thinker (my father), I question everything! I read the Christian Bible, Buddhist Koans, Taoist excerpts and random spiritual texts, not to become a spiritualist (Christian or otherwise) but to hopefully acquire the missing fragments to complete my spiritual puzzle. In this journey of seeking spiritual enlightenment, I have stumbled upon a law that cannot be ignored by any religious group. The Law of Love.
If I may elaborate a little, physical man is a mere animation of his metaphysical spirit. When one sets out to do something, it is merely an act of trying to appease a spiritual yearning.
In all of this, love is the highway between the physical and spiritual. In essence, Love is that which makes one complete! If one sets out to achieve wealth, without love, then one will find oneself accumulating that which the spirit does not desire. When that happens, one will not be well, even after achieving everything! On the other hand, if one puts love first, eternal wellbeing will prevail, even with the little that is fathomable and the little that one continues to gain. The Law of Love brings with it the benefit of Patience among many other things!
This is the Law of Love which I subscribe to – the lens through which I aspire to judge everything else.
These two things, life and business, are the make up of a mental itch that I hope to scratch by writing on this space. I cannot hope that you enjoy reading because I do not write for my own enjoyment. However, I do hope that you can mold these words into a tool of your liking to scratch your own itch, be it in life or business.